The year was 1968. Canada just turned 100 and was basking in the afterglow of having held the world’s fair the year before. Pierre Trudeau was the nation’s new Prime Minister and in London, a group of self-named “global villagers” gathered at the University of Western Ontario to learn and talk about what was then called the “Third World.”

Canada didn’t know it needed newcomers then, but as globalization began to take hold, technology improved and people began to leave the Forest City to explore the world, newcomers — many of them refugees — came to London to find a new and better life.

That little group at Western University evolved into a global education centre and eventually, established itself as London’s main newcomer resettlement agency — the London Cross Cultural Learner Centre.

The centre is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and spent much of the past year examining its roots and what it has accomplished over the last five decades.

“(We’re) helping newcomers to our country, our province, our city to integrate . . . (and are) working with the existing folks in our community to embrace those newcomers and hopefully form a stronger community between the two groups.”

By the late 1960’s, Londoners began to leave the city to travel, volunteer and provide aid in developing countries, according to the centre. A group of like-minded individuals who called themselves “global travellers” gathered in a classroom at Western University to discuss the world. Shortly after, a permanent centre for cross-cultural learning was formed.

“They were learning from each other,” said Deborah O’Grady, a communications manager at the centre.

By the 70s, the centre became a hub for international education with an extensive reference library and even a mobile resource centre that toured the country. In an age without internet, Londoners were able to go to the centre and learn about the world.

In 1980, the centre severed ties with the university, and became a charitable organization, according to O’Grady. Slowly, as political interests shifted, so did the interests of the centre.

“The library started to fade into history and we focused on re-settlement,” O’Grady said. “(Now), our general clientele is government assisted refugees, . . . but we also help anybody who might be a newcomer that needs help understanding how the Canadian system works.”

While Canada saw large amounts of European migration during and after the Second World War, by the 1980s, several newcomers were coming from places like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, according to the centre’s data.

The early to mid-1990’s brought waves of newcomers from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and former Yugoslavia to London, according to the centre’s data.

In the 2000s, refugees from Colombia, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Afghanistan and Iraq arrived in London and a huge wave of Syrian refugees came to London in late 2015 and 2016 as the government promised to welcome thousands to Canada.

The centre’s annual report says it welcomed 653 government-assisted refugees to London last year with about 60 per cent of them being from Syria. Several from the Rupublic of Congo and Iraq were also welcomed by the centre.

“Imagine you are a displaced person . . . for whatever reason — it can be war, persecution based on gender identity or sexual orientation — you’re not welcome in your home country anymore,” O’Grady said. “You’ll go through a process with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees where you go through a security review . . . and find out that Canada is willing to take you as a refugee.”

O’Grady said that once refugees are assigned to come to London, they fly in to Pearson International Airport in Toronto, get on a Robert Q bus and arrive at the Cross Cultural Learner Centre’s front door.

The centre takes them in for 15 days, housing them on the third floor of the building, and helps them find a home, jobs, care for their kids and sets them up with a variety of newcomer services like language assessments, community connections and health care, according to O’Grady.

“Our bread and butter, the daily stuff we do is helping the newcomer,” O’Grady said.

CCLC 50th anniversary

Tarek Moharram, chair of the board for the Cross Cultural Learner Centre in London, Ont. (Mike Hensen/The London Free Press)

Moharram said the politics of the world was — and still is — reflected in the newcomers who are seeking better lives in London.

“As time goes on, the regions that we serve are going to continue changing. . . . We respond to regions that are challenged because of conflict and other issues” Moharram said. “Currently, we’re working with people from the Middle East, . . . but that hasn’t always been the case.”

Moharram said that next steps for the centre are to continue to adjust to the different waves of newcomers and refugees in London and their different needs as well as continue to invest in the organization and its programs.

He said that although there seems to be an increase in anti-immigrant rhetoric due to changing political climates, it gives people on the opposite side of that debate a reason to speak up, be louder and help out even more. He noted that the work the Cross Cultural Learner Centre does contributes to a larger discussion regarding immigration and refugees.

“The one side of that response has . . . catalyzed the other side of the debate,” Moharram said. “The best thing that we can do is keep the conversation going.”

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